1481
'Two Centuries of Antici...' Faerûn knew there was something different about the Stonehearth Merchant Company nearly two centuries ago. By 1297, the transformed Greathearth Company had streamlined operations, increasing efficiency and quickly expanding in size. They weren't the cheapest, they were rarely the most expensive, and they used the power of conglomerate to control supply chains and keep the values high for their customers. By 1303, they were creating their own heavy duty/high-capacity cartage wagons and by 1308, their scribe division had moved into magical scrolls... and never looked back. The inner workings of the SMC were absolutely secret, guarded against the industrial espionage of other Baldurian companies, against Amn and Waterdeep alike. By 1323, they'd single-handedly ushered in the Industrial Age. It was so potent that competitors simply had no answer. By 1332, they'd developed modular wands and by 1341, their Baldurian facilities were protected by mythals! The SMC, and House Stonehearth behind it, bankrolled the Baldurian initiatives (like joining the Council of Lords in 1325 – what would eventually grow into the Lords' Alliance). By 1358, when the Time of Troubles started with the Era of Upheaval – when divine magic mostly stopped and arcane magic went dangerously unstable – Stonehearth's potion and scroll business hummed along without a hiccup. It didn't take an arcane analyst to figure out that Stonehearth was tapped in to something different. Exactly what it was, though, was an extremely well-guarded secret. Even when they started broadening their connections, training their close allies, the training extended to information security and a voluntary geas. Despite hundreds of attempts, the secret remained safe. It was only after arcane scholars started deducing what it might be that rumors kicked into overdrive. It was never confirmed because it took context to make people understand the actual metaphysics of magic. Without that context, simply saying [that] seemed insane. And Stonehearth was not insane. But they did know how to draw out that sense of antici... ...Pation Through the Time of Troubles, as the SMC became the supplier of potions and scrolls to Faerûn, the merchant pull was creating a gulf from which competitors would never recover. Maybe they would've had a chance if Stonehearth just sat on their profits, piling up mountains of gold, but they didn't: they spent like it was going out of style. Some of it went into properties, a lot of it was invested in their people, while the bulk of it went into research and development. Stonehearth had no mortal competition, they weren't resting on their laurels. By the 1385 Spellplague, they were operating on another level. A level that struck fear into competitors; a fear that Stonehearth could achieve royal-level ambitions – if only because Stonehearth was unaffected by arcane cataclysm. It wasn't until the early 15th century that analysts in Waterdeep and Candlekeep alike started thinking the unthinkable. Was Stonehearth bypassing the Weave (and Shadow Weave) altogether? Raw magic wasn't something that anybody harnessed directly. There were a few special taps that the Chosen of Mystra could pull off, but it wasn't a regular point of arcane mechanics. It couldn't be harnessed like normal weave magic. …Except it could. And Stonehearth had been doing so for more than a century. 'Stonehearth's confirmation' By mid-year, 1481 DR, that “secret” was officially confirmed, though the details certainly weren't revealed. First, by 1481, the technique wasn’t that secret. It was a proprietary system that was licensed and taught to close allies – and those who’d taken an oath of conduct… It was held in confidence because of its hazards and toxicity if misused or abused, as well as its raw power. A few technical reveals: the state and condition of the weave was irrelevant to the technique. Their technique did not damage the weave. In a way, it normalized the flow of magic, conditioning the source… in a way, protecting the weave. Ultimately, the weave was not a barrier. Much like changing the focus on a camera, the Weave was transparent to the Stonehearth casting technique. 'The “Stonehearth Technique” became known as the “Primal Technique”' Primal magic was not to be confused with Primordials, though they both associated with the very beginning. This was not the manifest entropic elementals – even they pulled their magic from the Weave. Rather, this was a reference to tapping magic before it was pulled through the filter of the weave. It was more difficult to access magic in this fashion, but once the bypass known, it didn’t matter what happened with the weave above it. It was unknown what Ao or Mystra (or whomever her successor was) thought about this. They must surely know, but for all the rumored divine drama, there had been no measurable intervention from the gods regarding this arcane technique. Except maybe Oghma, who seemed absolutely delighted. It was also theorized that it wasn’t possible for the gods to throttle this avenue of magic… It also clarified why Stonehearth casters weren’t in pursuit of the Nether Scrolls: they were largely irrelevant. Potent beyond measure when used with the Weave, there was a passing academic interest in how the weave overlaid raw magic that the Nether Scrolls could illuminate. Beyond that, Stonehearth-led arcane academics had been exploring entirely new territory. There were theories, however, on why the gods hadn't come down from On High to smite Stonehearth. The biggest revolved around who Stonehearth had come in conflict with: the aboleths and the phaerimm. Both of those aberrations were uninvited by Ao, they afflicted both Toril and Abeir – and Stonehearth looked like the first entity that could cleanse the world of their presence. If that was indeed the case, then it was a powerful endorsement of Stonehearth. 'The Wildly Unfair Advantage of ''Knowing… The insights into the arcane gained from analysis and operations of Raw Magic translated into how the weave acted as a filter and conduit. There were, in some cases, advantages to the weave. Lesser advantages, to be sure, but there were points that could be valuable. These insights were circulated among the high-end creators around North Point (especially) and the marquisate in general. High level enchantments that worked entirely within the rules of the Weave, rarely seen in the rest of Toril, were available and accessible. This point alone had magically-oriented expatriates and immigrants, spies and mercenaries from all over Toril seeking what there was to learn. '''Characteristics of the “low level” technique… Between “Wands of Casting” and the custom Spell Focii, the Stonehearth/Mageweave arcane prowess felt like what it must’ve felt like when the Netherese first discovered what would come to be known as the Nether Scrolls. There was an awareness that there was something new – and it changed everything. Nobody in the outside world knew if the memorization and casting technique allowed level 12 Karsus-style godhood-type spells. What they did know, what they’d observed with their own eyes, was that Stonehearth casters were able to memorize a virtual catalog of spells. For some mid and even upper level spells, they were able to cast them as if they were cantrips: fireballs all day. Technically, there were no wizards in the main body of soldiers – yet there was regular casting from dragoons and musketeers. That was another quasi mystery to the outsiders, another thing to admired, feared and researched… 'Stonehearth's Information Campaign' There was a risk in this information getting out: from fear and potential increased targeting over divine disfavor to an ostensible but mercenary desire for power. Still, Stonehearth enjoyed more than a century of raw access before Toril's arcane intelligentsia figured out what they were doing. Stonehearth authorized the disclosure (or at least the confirmation) to keep Larloch at bay. Their method of magic was utterly incompatible with everything he knew how to do. Or at least mostly incompatible... What amounted to Stonehearth PSYOPS, this helped push Larloch farther away while also calming fears of Weave-endangerment. Timeline Exploration *Go back to the Primal Magic timeline... *Check out 1481 in the Forgotten Realms original timeline... Category:Hall of Records Category:Timeline Category:1480s Category:1481